The Stacks: William Styron was Lit’s Big Game Hunter
A white southerner by birth, Styron scorned the label of regional author—the world was his territory and the bigger the subject the better, from American slavery to the Holocaust. When Philip Caputo...
View ArticleThe 100 best novels: from Bunyan’s pilgrim to Carey’s Ned Kelly
Two years in the making, our list of the 100 greatest English-language novels of all time is now complete. Having endured many sleepless nights in its compilation, Robert McCrum reflects on who got...
View ArticleMadame Bovary's malaise and the feminine mystique
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View ArticleDavid Bowie's list of 100 favorite books reveal his true inner nerd
We all know David Bowie as a music and pop culture icon. But if you are hoping looking for a crash course in must-read literature, look no further than Bowie's 100 favorite books. Bowie's list is as...
View ArticleGemma Bovary presents a new recipe for Madame Bovary
Audiences may know Gemma Arterton as the Bond girl in Quantum of Solace or Gretel in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters but the British actress’s repertoire expands past action films to the classics. In...
View Article'Madame Bovary' returns to speak to modern condition in two distinct films
It would seem unlikely that a story about a 19th century young French woman escaping her marriage and tedious provincial life by embarking on scandalous affairs would have much appeal to 21st century...
View ArticleMadame Bovary is Half of a Haunted, Remarkably Empathetic Film
On its surface, Sophie Barthes’s film of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary comes at us like a musty blast of Quality – what...
View ArticleRemembering David Bowie through his 100 favorite books
Although David Bowie was best known for his music, he also made countless contributions to the worlds of art, fashion and film. But the singer, who died Sunday, was also devoted to literature. In 2013,...
View Article‘Based on a true story’: the fine line between fact and fiction
From Kapuscinski to Knausgaard, from Mantel to Macfarlane, more and more writers are challenging the border between fiction and nonfiction. Here Geoff Dyer – longtime master of the space between, in...
View Article'Bovery' or 'Bovary,' story still works
When in 1857, Gustav Flaubert published his now-classic novel, "Emma Bovary," about a wife's infidelity, the writer was brought to trial (and acquitted) for immorality, overlooking the work's profound...
View ArticleReview: Uninspired And Disengaged 'Madame Bovary' Starring Mia Wasikowska
By Rodrigo Perez | The Playlist Tue Jun 09 18:04:00 EDT 2015 0 It is not prerequisite that the period costume drama needs a hook, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Joe Wright’s stylish “Anna Karenina”...
View ArticleMadame Bovary at 160: a bourgeois sex revolutionary
Flaubert’s anti-heroine, the original Desperate Housewife lost in the dreams of romantic fiction, was a scandal on publication and still challenges our morality...
View ArticleThe 100 best novels in English? Irish writers and critics have their say
Fair play to Robert McCrum. Compiling a list over two years entitled The 100 best novels written in English for the Observer and guardian.com is not simply sticking your head over the literary parapet,...
View ArticlePaul McVeigh Q&A: ‘It’s ironic the two books I did the most research for I...
What was the first book to make an impression on you? Fluffy Bum the Cat by Spike Milligan. Milligan was a comedy genius. I loved his irreverance. As a very young, working-class boy, without a book in...
View ArticleJuan Tomás Ávila Laurel Q&A: ‘I wrote one of my first novels sitting up a tree’
Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel is a novelist from Equatorial Guinea, who writes mostly about social, political and economic ineqality in his country and in Africa more widely. His latest novel By Night the...
View ArticleRob Doyle: ‘It would be nice to shock people, but I think that’s long gone’
The opening story in This Is the Ritual, the second book by the Dublin-born writer Rob Doyle, is a comic slaying of a herd of sacred cows. The narrator, also named Rob, finds himself on the ferry from...
View ArticleCaitriona Lally on Eggshells: The Irish Times Book Club podcast
The Irish Times Book Club’s in-depth look at Caitriona Lally’s Eggshells reaches its climax with a podcast in which the author reads a passage from her debut novel and discusses...
View ArticleA sneak preview of next Saturday’s books coverage in The Irish Times
On the fiction front this week, Irish Times crime-writing columnist Declan Burke reviews Belfast Noir, a Northern anthology edited by Stuart Neville and Adrian McKinty. Eileen Battersby reviews Uppsala...
View ArticleMichael Grothaus Q&A: ‘Don’t worry about the first draft. It’s always going...
What was the first book to make an impression on you? The very first book to make an impression on me was the novel Shibumi by Trevanian. It’s a philosophical exploration about democracy, consumerism,...
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